


Bitter/Sweet

by jujitsuelf



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Additional character death (not canon), Canonical Character Death, Implied Herc/Chuck relationship, M/M, Tendo POV, damn Hansens, ghost-Drifts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-03
Updated: 2014-10-03
Packaged: 2018-02-19 18:09:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2397899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujitsuelf/pseuds/jujitsuelf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ghost-Drifts are practically folklore; nobody really knows whether they actually exist, much less how they function. </p>
<p>Herc and Chuck Hansen have the strongest neural connection of any Jaeger team, that much is common knowledge. What's less well known is that Tendo's seen them still in sync hours, sometimes days, after they've disconnected from the Drift proper. If anyone is constantly ghost-Drifting, it's the Hansens. </p>
<p>But what will happen when the worst possible circumstances conspire to sever that ghostly neural link?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bitter/Sweet

**Author's Note:**

> This all came about from an idea emailed to me by the wonderful 3White_Mage3. I hope it lives up to the cleverness of that original inspiration.  
> ***  
> Disclaimer – All publicly recognizable characters, settings etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended  
> ***

No parent should never have to bury a child. Tendo had heard it said often enough since Trespasser hauled its ugly carcass out of the Breach. How many families across the globe had been shattered, decimated, utterly destroyed by the Kaiju and their apparent plan to annihilate mankind?

Being the sole survivor of a familial line wasn’t something anyone should have to bear, but Tendo was almost accustomed to seeing it by now. Mako, Stacker, Raleigh, countless other Shatterdome staff who now had no home and no family beyond the PPDC.

What would it take to seal the Breach and give humanity another shot at survival?

Another shattered family, another sole remaining member.

Herc Hansen took stoic and square-jawed to new heights. Teeth gritted so hard Tendo could hear them grinding against each other, Herc stared at the radar screen and watched as Gipsy Danger and Striker Eureka advanced on the rip between realities. Their two green blips seemed small, fragile, pathetically tiny against the three red dots which swirled around them. Three Kaiju, two Jaegers. Suicide mission.

Herc’s knuckles showed white as he gripped the edge of Tendo’s desk. How he was even still upright, Tendo had no idea. If he ever had to watch his son or daughter slowly advancing on certain death, he’d be in a sobbing, hysterical ball on the floor, he knew for certain. But Herc; Herc was something else. He was old-school RAAF. To him, emotions were dirty things and needed to be bottled up, kept out of sight, never allowed to impinge on the job. Professionalism and duty came before everything else, even while he watched his only living family walk to destruction.

Chuck’s voice crackled over the radio, scared and strangely boyish but as determined as ever. He might be an arrogant little bastard but he had guts just like his father, nobody could ever say that he didn’t.

"My father always said, if you have a shot, you take it."

Herc’s eyes briefly closed. Tendo’s throat was beyond painful, holding back sobs which threatened to spill out at any second. It was so fucking unfair. Herc didn’t deserve to lose his only son and Chuck didn’t deserve to die at the age of twenty-one.

But duty was duty and both Hansens knew it. There was more at stake than just their lives, it was the entire world they were talking about. Chuck, for all his many faults, didn’t shy away from responsibility. The LOCCENT echoed with his voice and Stacker’s, both expressing their pride at having served together, for all the world like some stiff-upper-lip British film from back in the dark days of World War Two.

Detonating Striker’s payload was the only option, the only chance to get Gipsy Danger close enough to the Breach to do damage.

Tears shone in Herc’s eyes, still trained on the radar screen. How was he doing it? How was he still functional?

How would he react to Chuck being gone? Not as a father, but as a Drift partner? Tendo had seen enough examples of ghost-Drifting to know that Chuck and Herc barely ever surfaced from it. Spending so much time literally in each other’s brains had interwoven them to an almost frightening extent.

Some of it could be accounted for by saying it was just exploiting their natural family connection, a strong link between father and son. But sometimes Tendo saw a certain look pass between the two of them, something which held more promise and far more emotion than they ever portrayed at any other time. The Drift had been known to bring people together in the past, it wasn’t so unthinkable that it could happen again. Which made the situation all the more heartbreaking. Herc wasn’t just losing his son, but possibly the only person in the world to whom he felt any real connection. The person with whom he would probably have spent the rest of his years.

Had a pilot ever died while technically unconnected to the other but most likely ghost-Drifting, the tendrils of neural connection still holding strong despite the immeasurable distance between their bodies?

It occurred to Tendo that he should probably say something, ask Herc what the hell was going to happen when that ghost-link was severed for good. But the tears in Herc’s eyes stopped him. It wasn’t the time. Whatever happened would happen and no amount of words would stop or change it.

In an instant, Striker Eureka’s green radar blip vanished from the screen. It was a heartbreakingly tiny representation of what must have been a terrifying way to die.

Tendo opened his mouth to say something, anything to Herc. But the words never left his throat. With a noise almost like a sigh, Herc crumpled and sank to the floor. A puppet with its strings abruptly cut.

"Shit! Medic!" Tendo yelled. "Medic now!"

Scrambling, fumbling, pressing shaking fingers against Herc’s neck, Tendo muttered a prayer under his breath. The rosary wound around his wrist caught the light, did that mean God was listening?

"Come on, come on, buddy. Don’t do this. Come on, please, Herc."

But search as he might, no pulse fluttered under Herc’s skin.

The medics shoved Tendo out of the way a moment later. He retreated to the safety of his chair and wiped a hand over his face. Well, that answered the question about what would happen when such a strong ghost-Drift was severed. Holy shit.

The med crew were sweating and cursing as they tried every technique they knew to revive Herc. When they reached for the defibrillator, Tendo stood up.

"Leave him."

"We can’t," the senior medic, an earnest American in his forties, said. "He’s the Marshall, we can’t just leave him. We have to try..."

"You’ve tried," Tendo cut him off. "And he’s gone. Leave him. You really think he’d thank you for bringing him back now?"

Biting his lip, the medic dropped the defibrillator paddles. "No. No, guess not." His colleagues nodded their agreement and backed away.

Tendo covered his eyes for a minute, while he wasn’t against showing emotion in public, having the whole LOCCENT see him cry wasn’t what he wanted just then. Jesus, what the hell was going to happen? What would they do without stoic, solid Herc in charge?

Regaining control of himself, Tendo let his hand drop and sank to his knees beside Herc. It was strange to see those blue eyes so open and unshuttered. All the worry lines on Herc’s face seemed to have smoothed out, he wasn’t the Marshall with a thousand troubles any longer.

"I hope you find him, buddy." Tendo awkwardly patted Herc’s hand. It was still warm but the power and strength that Herc had constantly radiated had faded away. All of a sudden Tendo needed to be away from there, away from Drift technology, away from all the death. His stomach flipped and churned and tears blurred his eyes.

"You were a good dad, Herc. Chuck turned out okay really. He was just like you. Not his fault."

"Tendo?" A young technician cautiously touched Tendo’s shoulder. "Tendo, what’s going on? What happened to the Marshall, was it a heart attack?"

"It was the Drift," Tendo replied, his voice harsh in his own ears. "The fucking Drift killed him." He bit his tongue as the young man shrank back. It wasn’t the kid’s fault.

In a gentler tone, Tendo said, "I guess ghost-Drifts are stronger than we thought. Maybe when Chuck...when it happened, the shock was too much for Herc’s brain to cope with."

Nodding, the technician backed away further, then turned to whisper furiously with his colleagues.

Tendo ignored them, they didn’t matter. Carefully, heedless of the tears which now fell freely, he slid Herc’s eyes shut.

"Sleep well, buddy."

It might have been his blurred vision or maybe just wishful thinking, but Tendo thought there was just a trace of exhausted relief in Herc’s eyes as they closed. It was stupid, of course. How could a dead man show any kind of emotion? But perhaps in that instant of knowing that his only son was dead and then realizing all wasn’t lost, that he’d see Chuck again sooner than expected, relief might have been what Herc felt as he fell.

"Don’t drink heaven dry without me." It was a clichéd thing to say but Tendo was past caring.

Senior staff members were crowding into the LOCCENT demanding to know what was going on. Tendo stood and moved away from Herc, allowing the med team to cover his body and attempt to preserve some dignity.

The young technician caught Tendo’s eye and motioned at the door. Nodding gratefully, Tendo slipped away unnoticed in the chaos.

The war was over, the world was safe. No more Kaiju, no more PPDC probably. What would he do? Who would need a senior LOCCENT officer? It didn’t matter. Caught in between tearing, painful grief and heart-crushing relief that it was finally all over, Tendo found himself at the Kwoon.

It was silent and empty. In his mind’s eye, Tendo saw Herc and Chuck sparring, taunting each other, egging one another on. They were two of a kind, a very special kind. Maybe they’d been born to fall in war. Neither would have coped with peacetime very well, they weren’t cut out for it. Real soldiers never are.

Swallowing hard and swiping tears from his eyes, Tendo threw a salute to the ghosts, then bowed solemnly at the edge of the training mat.

"Bye, boys."

As he walked away, he was certain he heard a faint mocking laugh but that was surely just his imagination. He smiled and kept moving.

**Author's Note:**

> *insert shameless plea for comments and feedback here*


End file.
